1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to interferometry. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for imaging wavefronts. The methods and apparatus of the present invention may be implemented in measuring systems that measure various parameters of test objects by simultaneously generating a plurality of phase-shifted interferograms.
2. Description of the Related Art
Phase-shift interferometry is an established method for measuring a variety of physical parameters ranging from the density of gasses to the displacement of solid objects. Interferometric wavefront sensors can employ phase-shift interferometers to measure the spatial distribution of relative phase across an area and, thus, to measure a physical parameter across a two-dimensional region. An interferometric wavefront sensor employing phase-shift interferometry typically consists of a spatially coherent light source that is split into two wavefronts, a reference wavefront and an object wavefront, which are later recombined after traveling different optical paths of different lengths. The relative phase difference between the two wavefronts is manifested as a two-dimensional intensity pattern known as an interferogram. Phase-shift interferometers typically have an element in the path of the reference wavefront which introduces three or more known phase steps or shifts. By detecting the intensity pattern with a detector at each of the phase shifts, the phase distribution of the object wavefront can be quantitatively calculated independent of any attenuation in either of the reference or object wavefronts. Both continuous phase gradients and discontinuous phase gradients (speckle waves) can be measured using this technique.
Temporal phase shifting using methods such as piezo-electric driven mirrors have been widely used to obtain high-quality measurements under otherwise static conditions. The measurement of transient or high-speed events requires either ultra high-speed temporal phase shifting (i.e., much faster than the event timescales), which is limited due to detector speed, or spatial phase shifting that can acquire essentially instantaneous measurements.
Several methods of spatial phase shifting have been disclosed in the prior art. In 1983 Smythe and Moore described a spatial phase-shifting method in which a series of conventional beam splitters and polarization optics are used to produce three or four phase-shifted images onto as many cameras for simultaneous detection. A number of United States patents, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,575,248; 5,589,938; 5,663,793; 5,777,741; and 5,883,717, disclose variations of the Smythe and Moore method where multiple cameras are used to detect multiple interferograms. One of the disadvantages of these methods is that multiple cameras are required and complicated optical arrangements are need to produce the phase-shifted images, resulting in expensive complex systems.
Other methods of spatial phase shifting include the use of gratings to introduce a relative phase step between the incident and diffracted beams, an example of which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,624,569. However, one of the disadvantages of these grating methods is that careful adjustment of the position of the grating is required to control the phase step between the beams.
Spatial phase shifting has also been accomplished by using a tilted reference wave to induce a spatial carrier frequency to the pattern, an example of which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,155,363. This method requires the phase of the object field to vary slowly with respect to the detector pixels; therefore, using this method with speckle fields requires high magnification.
Yet another method for measuring the relative phase between two beams is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,116, in which a linear grating and four detector elements are used. This method has a number of drawbacks, including the inability to measure of wavefronts (i.e., the spatial phase distribution across the profile of a beam) and to form contiguous images on a single pixilated detector such as a standard charge coupled device (CCD).
Finally, it is noted that wavefront sensing can be accomplished by non-interferometric means, such as with Shack-Hartmann sensors which measure the spatially dependent angle of propagation across a wavefront. These types of sensors are disadvantageous in that they typically have much less sensitivity and spatial resolution than interferometric wavefront sensors and are not capable of performing relative phase measurements such as two-wavelength interferometry.